


Live. Love. Laugh. Play.

by anecdotalist



Category: One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, the boys as children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 17:59:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4676060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anecdotalist/pseuds/anecdotalist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam, Zayn, Harry, Niall, and Louis become Best Friends and have Adventures as the make their way through primary school. </p><p>Featuring Liam and Zayn as the bestest of best friends (of course), Louis being a mastermind, and Caroline Watson as the very amused 5th year teacher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Live. Love. Laugh. Play.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreams/gifts).



> First of all, Dreams, I'm soooo sorry this is being posted late. I actually loved all three prompts you suggested and nearly wrote something for all of them but er, I ran out of time. I actually even plotted out something for the Liam as captain of a spaceship one but I didn't think I could do the angst justice. But if you're interested, hit me up once this is de-anon'ed and I'll share my headcanons with you. :)
> 
> Anyway! Onto this particular fic! This is for the prompt: "Gen. The five of them are in elementary school. They're like this merry band of friends that have 'adventures' and stuff. They recover their HQ (tree house in H's yard) from the evil Lioncat, and then one of them ends up adopting it. They liberate the ice cream in the school's cafeteria. They pass math! They get lost in an art museum bc Z got distracted by something, the doughnut. I'd rather the other kids where OCs, and no 'mean little girl' bullying the boys, no bullying in general, the kids are an united front against the ice cream withholding school administration. BONUS: Caroline as their teacher."
> 
> I converted the prompt to the UK school system for authenticity. And then I said 'fuck authenticity' and made them all the same age so they could be in the same class. :P So, sorry to all the purists reading this.
> 
> Thanks go to Aimee for Brit-picking and being kind enough not to yell at me for taking so long with this. Any remaining errors are mine (if you notice anything, please do point them out so I can fix them).

**Year 1**

It started when they were five.

One day, Zayn's shoe fell off while he was playing football during the morning break. He frowned and plopped down on the grass to put it back on, hoping he wouldn't miss much of the game. But the stupid knots wouldn't stay tied! He huffed, unlaced his shoes and started over, mouthing the words of the little rhyme his mum had taught him to use when tying his shoelaces.

"Watch out!" a boy cried out.

Zayn looked up reflexively and saw a boy with light brown curly hair running up and kicking away the football which had apparently been careening straight at Zayn. The other boy stopped in front of him, resting his hands on his knees and panting.

"Are you okay?" the boy asked.

"Yeah, thanks."

The boy nodded and then looked around. When he saw that the game had moved on away from them, he shrugged and sat down on the grass. "I'm Liam," he said.

"Hi, 'm Zayn."

"Don't wanna play?" Liam asked, tilting his head curiously.

Zayn gestured at his shoe. "M'shoe fell off. Gotta tie it back up."

"Oh, okay."

Zayn went back to trying to tie his laces, biting on his tongue in concentration. Make one lace into a bunny ear, loop the other lace around it, then...then what? He couldn't remember! Zayn sighed gustily and flopped back on the grass completely. He gave up. How was this so hard? _Why_ was it so hard? Why didn't he just wear his other shoes, with the velcro straps? Oh right, he'd wanted to look like a big boy and not like a little kid. And now he'll have to get an adult to do his laces for him. How embarrassing.

In front of him, Liam cleared his throat. Oh, right, Liam was still there. He'd probably seen the whole thing and was laughing at Zayn now.

Zayn warily peeked over at him but Liam didn't look like he was laughing at him. He looked a little shy and nervous, actually.

"Um, can I try?" Liam asked, gesturing at his shoe.

Zayn waved. "Sure, why not? It's hopeless, though. I'm just going to have to get one of the teachers to do it for me." Liam scooted closer and hunched over his shoe. He started tugging at the laces but Zayn focused back on the sky, watching the clouds passing through the blue sky and contemplating his fate. "And then everyone will see that I can't tie my shoelaces. And then they'll all laugh at me and I'll never make any friends."

Liam hummed in response. Then he patted Zayn's foot and announced "done!"

"What?!" Zayn sat up in shock and stared at his shoe and yep, there it was. All tied up. Not as nice as the other one, which still had the knot his mum had done for him this morning, but better than Zayn's own attempts and it looked like it might actually stay tied. He gaped at Liam. "How did you do that?!"

Liam smiled brightly at him. "My sisters made me practice tons before I started school."

"Wow!" Zayn was amazed. He'd been practicing a bit but to be honest, he usually preferred spending his time drawing or coloring instead. He heard the shouts of other kids as the game came back towards them and he started getting nervous. "You won't, like, tell anyone, will you?"

"Not if you don't want me to," Liam said with a shrug.

Zayn shook his head.

"Okay, then. I won't."

"Pinky swear?" Zayn asked, holding out his pinky.

"Pinky swear." Liam said firmly, hooking his own pinky around Zayn's and giving it a shake.

Zayn smiled widely and stood up. "Come on, let's go back to the game!" he said, holding out his hand to his new friend. Liam grabbed his hand and clambered up to his feet and together, they ran back to join the rest of their classmates.

At lunch that day, Liam fell in next to him as they walked to the cafeteria, swinging his Batman lunchbox at his side. Zayn grinned at him conspiratorially and showed him his own Green Lantern lunchbox.

"Wicked!" Liam exclaimed and the two of them compared notes about their favorite comics the rest of the way. 

Once inside the large room with rows of long tables and little round seats, the class split - those who needed to buy lunch went to stand in line for their trays and those who brought lunch claimed first dibs on the tables designated for their class. Liam tugged him to one end of their class' table and the two of them settled into seats, opening up their lunchboxes amid the hustle and bustle all around them.

Zayn unwrapped the samosas his mum had packed for him, mouth watering a bit at the delicious smells that wafted out. His mum was such a good cook. He loved everything she made.

"What are those?" Liam asked.

Zayn glanced over to see the other boy watching him curiously, half a sandwich held forgotten in one hand. "Samosas," Zayn replied. He held one up and turned it over to show his new friend.

"What's in it?"

"Potatoes, onions, peas," Zayn started listing, thinking of his mum rattling off the ingredients for him with a laugh. He was always curious about her cooking. Liam's nose scrunched up with each vegetable named and then Zayn named the final (and his favorite) ingredient - "chicken" - and Liam's face transformed into one of understanding. "But the vegetables aren't that bad," he tacked on, thinking of his mother chiding him about the benefits of eating his veggies. She did always try to make them taste good, at least.

The other boy looked doubtful.

Zayn thought for a moment. His mum had only packed three samosas for him and he did love them but friends shared food with each other and he and Liam were friends now, right? Yes, of course they were. Liam had helped him out and didn't tell anyone just as Zayn had asked. Liam clearly had never tried samosas before and Zayn couldn't let that travesty continue. What kind of friend would he be not to introduce his friend to such good food? Zayn nodded to himself, feeling like he was making the only decision that he could. He turned back to Liam who had taken a bite of his sandwich but was still eyeing Zayn's lunch.

"Do you want to try one?" Zayn asked, picking one up and offering it.

Liam's brown eyes lit up. "Oh, can I?" At Zayn's nod, he set his sandwich back down in his box and gingerly took hold of the pastry. He bit into it and his eyes widened in surprise. "It's crispy!"

Zayn nodded and bit into his own samosa.

"Mm, this is really good!" Liam said as he finished it with a couple more bites. "I can't even tell that there's veggies in here!"

"Yeah, my mum made it. She's a really good cook."

"Wow!" Liam studied his lunch assortment and then said, "Hey, do you want some of my sandwich? It's ham and cheese."

"Oh, um..." Zayn hesitated. "I can't. I don't eat pig. 'Cuz I'm Muslim." He felt anxious waiting to hear Liam's response to that. His parents had told him it wasn't a bad thing not to eat pig but he knew it made him different. Would Liam think he was weird because of it?

But the other boy didn't seem fazed at all by his refusal. He instead lifted out a bag of crisps. "How about these, then? Wanna share?"

Zayn smiled. "Yeah, okay."

Liam popped the bag open and set it between the two of them and just then a pale boy with brown hair so light it was nearly blond set his tray down in front of them with an enthusiastic, "Hey, Liam! How goes it?"

"Hey Niall!" Liam and the new boy bumped fists over the table as a second boy - brown haired, green eyed - followed behind Niall at a more sedate pace. "This is Zayn," Liam said, clapping Zayn on the shoulder. "He's really cool."

Zayn couldn't help flashing a smile at his new friend. No one had called him cool before.

"Niall's my neighbor," Liam told him and then turned questioningly to the as-yet unnamed boy.

"Hi! I'm Harry," the boy answered obligingly.

"He scored the winning point in the game this morning!" Niall broke in enthusiastically.

"Cheers, mate!" Liam exclaimed.

Zayn echoed him and then a boy with tousled brown hair and bright blue eyes thumped his tray down on the table emphatically next to Harry. The boy leaned over and smiled widely at their group. "Hello, lads! My name's Louis and we're going to be best friends!"

The other four looked at each other and shrugged agreeably.

And so that was how they became best friends.

**Year 2**

After a summer of group play dates in the park, at the movies, and sleepovers at each other's houses, Louis came up to them like a whirlwind at lunch on the first day of their second year. As had become their habit, Liam and Zayn had settled into one corner of their class' table with their lunchboxes and had made their trades of food (Zayn's mum had started packing more food specifically for him to give to Liam and Liam's mum had stopped using pork when she put together Liam's lunches so that he could share them with Zayn - unbeknown to both of the boys, their mums had started calling each other on the weekends to coordinate their lunch plans for them) while the other three waited in line for the school lunch. Sometimes Harry's mum packed him a sandwich and sometimes Harry ate the school lunches; he said he liked to change it up from time to time and today was a school lunch day for him. However, unlike their usual pattern, Louis wasn't with Harry and Niall when the two of them took their seats across from Liam and Zayn.

"Where's -?" Zayn had started and then Louis had rushed up to them waving a roll of papers in the air, blue eyes wild and practically bouncing in place from excitement.

"Boys! I have the perfect idea!" Louis said, taking a seat and spreading out the papers. His energy was quite infectious and the others automatically leaned forward to see what he had brought.

"Louis, don't you want to get food?" Liam asked, brow furrowed.

"Later, Liam. Look! This is what we need!" Louis held up the paper with a flourish. On the top was scribbled "Secret Clubhouse! Shhh..." and under that was a scribbled picture of a tree with a wooden treehouse nestled in the branches.

"Oh, wicked!" Niall gasped.

"Right? It's just a draft, of course. We'll need to have Zayn do a better drawing but it's time we got our own headquarters!" Louis declared.

And so they began on a long and arduous campaign to convince their families to build them a treehouse.

Zayn had a sketchpad with him, as usual, so he whipped that out and after Louis was shooed off to get food (because he got cranky and snappish when he was hungry and none of them wanted that), the four of the them started brainstorming how they wanted their tree house to look like and what kinds of amenities it should have.

That weekend, they took a break from their Nintendo tournament to scavenge around in Niall's garage and found some unused posters which his mum allowed them to take with an indulgent smile. Then, over the course of the next several weekends, they spent time in each boy's backyards, assessing the trees there and their potential rightness for being made into a tree house. They huddled in together and whisper-shouted their arguments for or against each candidate tree, and burst into muffled giggles whenever one of their parents walked over and gave them a quizzical look.

"What _are_ you boys up to now?" Zayn's mum asked them one day.

"Nothing!" the five of them chimed back with angelic smiles pasted on.

"Oh, now I really know there's something going on." But she just smiled and set down a plate of cookies which they fell on at once, setting their big plans aside in favor of chocolaty goodness.

They eventually settled on a tree in Harry's backyard which they all agreed was appropriately sturdy and good for climbing.

Then the real work began. They finalized the design for their tree house and hid themselves in Zayn's bedroom to draw it out on one of the posters. Well, Zayn did most of the drawing, as he was the "best artist in the world" (Liam's title for him ever since he had drawn a picture of Batman for the other boy). Liam sat next to him on the floor filling in the background of the poster with grass on the ground, birds in the sky, and leaves on the tree branches. Harry, Louis, and Niall huddled around another poster - Louis dictating a list of reasons why they should have a tree house ("so we can play without interruptions!"), Harry carefully writing them down with a black marker ("how do you spell interruptions?"), and Niall laughing and throwing in suggestions ("maybe just say 'without people bugging us'!"). 

Louis frowned, though. "No, we have to make this look grown-up and serious. Or else they won't listen," he insisted.

Harry sat hunched over the poster, marker frozen in the air, waiting for an answer to his question.

Finally, Zayn said, "It's i-n-t-e-r-r-u-p-t-i-o-n-s. Two r's." He hadn't looked up from his outlining of the tree house and he had gone back to biting on his tongue the way he always did when he was focusing on something.

Next to him, Liam gaped and looked amazed. "Wow, you're so smart, Zayn!" he breathed out.

At that, Zayn looked up at him and smiled. "Aw, thanks, Liam," he said, dragging out Liam's name as he always did so that it sounded more like "Leeyum." He was the only one to say it like that and Liam loved it. It was like he had a special nickname just from Zayn. Which was the way it should be since they were the bestest of best friends. "You're smart too."

Liam beamed at him and then the two of them focused back on the poster.

"This is coming out really good," Liam said, pointing at the tree house.

"Thanks. I like what you're doing with the grass and the birds and all," Zayn murmured.

Near them but unnoticed by them, the other three were watching with fond exasperation. They looked at each other and rolled their eyes with a smile. It was their usual response when Liam and Zayn went into their own world and became LiamandZayn.

They weren't quite able to finish everything by the time their parents arrived to pick them up so they had one more prep session the next weekend and then debated over whether to present the idea to all of their parents at once or if a divide-and-conquer strategy would work out better.

They ultimately decided to test the waters with their parents individually and then call everyone to a meeting and present the idea together, more for efficiency since chances were that their parents would have made them wait for an answer until they could consult each other anyway.

"Dad, what do you think about tree houses?" Liam asked one night while he and his dad were preparing the barbecue for dinner. Liam's dad was going to be making steak that night and Liam always loved helping his dad set up the barbecue and watching him cook. One day, when he was bigger, he wanted to be able to grill things too.

"Dad, what do you think about secret headquarters?" Louis asked in a whisper with a crooked smile and a twinkle in his eye. He was seated to the right of his father and had leaned over to ask him this very important question while his younger sisters were clamoring for their mother's attention.

"Mum, would you miss me too much if my friends and I hung out somewhere else besides here?" Zayn asked while he was helping his mum bake cookies.

"Dad, d'ya know how to build a tree house?" Niall asked while he and his dad were watching a footie game on telly.

"Mum, can we put a tree house in the backyard?" Harry asked while he was making sandwiches in the kitchen with his mum.

His mum paused in the act of layering a slice of cheese over a slice of ham and looked at him in surprise. "A what?"

Was that too obvious? That was probably too obvious. "Never mind," Harry backtracked quickly.

"Okay," his mum said, amused but letting it go for now. However, while Harry was busy eating his sandwich later, she looked out the window and eyed the tree in their yard speculatively. A tree house. That _would_ explain what the boys had been scheming over for the past couple of months. She couldn't wait to call the others and tell them. They had all been trying to figure out what their boys were up to and the guesses had ranged from surprise party to world domination.

It took the boys a couple of weekends to be able to arrange a time when all of their parents were free. Then they gathered in Harry's mum's living room - the sofas and chairs rearranged into a semi-circle facing the five boys standing in a line. Niall held onto the posters, blank sides out so as not the spoil the surprise before they began.

"Alright boys, what's this about?" Zayn's dad asked. The adults shared quick grins which made Louis squint at them suspiciously. What did they know? He shrugged it off for now. They had a presentation to give!

"Ladies and gentlemen, mums and dads, thank you for coming!" he said with a flourish. "We, your beloved children, have been working on a Very Important Project and your assistance is vital to its success!"

Harry's mum muffled a giggle and Liam's mum leaned over and murmured, "I wish I had thought to record this."

Louis frowned at them. Were they not taking this seriously? Seeing his stern look, Harry's mum hushed Liam's mum and they both settled back in their seats, composing their expressions into ones of polite interest. Louis nodded, satisfied, and gestured for Liam to take over.

"So, ahem, anyway. For the past year or so, we've been spending a lot of time at each other's houses. And we've all become quite close, I'd say. So we see this as a natural next step for us." He motioned to Harry who took one of the posters from Niall and stepped back, showing off the picture of the front of a tree house, depicting little rectangular wooden planks nailed to the trunk to be used as steps leading to an open arched doorway. In the bottom corner of the poster was a view of the house from the side, showing a small round hole in the wall that would serve as a window. The poster Niall was left holding was the one listing their reasons for getting a tree house. Some of their parents focused on the drawing first while others read through the list.

"What a lovely drawing," Niall's mum marveled.

"Yeah. Zayn did that," Liam said brightly.

"Liam helped," Zayn added.

"There's supposed to be a window in every wall so we can look out on all sides," Harry explained.

"So you want a tree house because then you'll be able to play without any of us interrupting you?" Louis' dad asked, reading the first bullet off of Niall's poster.

"Not just you guys. But all of our siblings too. We love them, obviously, but we wanted a space that was our own," Louis said.

"And this way, you'll also always know where we are. We won't have to try to figure out every weekend whose house to go to, because this will just be _it_ ," Liam said.

"But boys, if you're constantly at Harry's, isn't that going to be a bit much for his mum?" Zayn's mum asked.

Harry started getting worried - he didn't think of that! What if it was too much trouble for his mum? He didn't want to put her through that. But his mum just laughed. "Oh Trish, you know I don't mind having the boys over. And if they stick to just their tree house, well, there won't be any mess for me to clean up in here."

"That's true," Zayn's mum mused.

The five boys looked at each other with excited smiles. This sounded like it was going well. Maybe they really _would_ be able to get a tree house! And then Liam's dad cleared his throat.

When he saw them all swivel their heads towards him with worried looks, he chuckled. "Relax, boys. I can see that you really want this and you've put a lot of thought into it. My only counter proposal is that instead of us," his gesture encompassed all of the parents, "building one for you, you boys help us build it and we'll all work on it together. How's that sound?"

They shared a quick look with each other but their answer was easy. "Yes!" they shouted, throwing their hands up.

And then they celebrated with an impromptu ice cream party.

They worked through the winter on it and by springtime, they had a brand new tree house. They threw a tree house-warming party on the first day it was warm enough to play outside for long periods of time and spent the whole day in the tree - squeezing in and out of the windows to climb the branches, sitting around on the floor sharing crisps and sodas, lying down and watching the weak early spring sunlight streaming in between the still-bare tree branches.

"Ah, this is the life," Louis sighed at one point.

The others agreed. All that work to plan and build the tree house had been completely worth it.

And then, two weeks after they finished it, they nearly lost it to an invader.

It had been a hard week at school (practicing more subtraction and with bigger numbers too when the small numbers were already hard enough to do) so bright and early on Saturday, they met up at Harry's house and made straight for their tree house.

Niall beat them all to the tree and started climbing up the steps they'd fixed to the tree trunk with the others close behind. But when he reached the top step and went to boost himself through the entry, he yelped and scrambled back.

"Ow! What's happened?" Liam demanded, shaking his hand out from where Niall had stepped on it in his frantic attempt to go back down the steps.

"Go back, go back!" Niall shouted. "Hurry!"

There was general confusion but Louis, who had just started to climb up, backed away from the tree and joined Harry and Zayn where they had been standing waiting their turn to go up. Liam quickly but calmly climbed back down and hopped off the tree when he was close enough to the ground to make way for Niall to do the same.

"What happened?" Louis demanded as the boys swarmed around Niall.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked, a concerned furrow in his brow.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I just panicked. There's a _cat_ in the tree house!" Niall exclaimed.

"A cat?!" the boys chorused.

"Yeah, I think it's that tabby stray that runs around the neighborhood. The one with the fur that sticks out like -" Niall held both hands out on either side of his face, miming a mane of fur framing it.

Harry nodded. "Yeah, the lioncat." At Zayn's questioning look, he shrugged. "It looks like a little lion, with the hair all fluffed up like that."

"Anyway, it's in there. And my mum says to be careful of it because it's probably got diseases. How do we get it out?!"

"I'm gonna go take a look at it," Louis declared. As the others watched, he scrambled up the tree trunk and carefully stuck his head in the doorway. He stared contemplatively into the tree house for a bit and then climbed back down.

"Well?" Liam asked expectantly.

"It seems pretty entrenched," Louis said, with the air of an army general.

Liam raised an eyebrow.

"It's just curled up in the middle of the floor, soaking in the sun. It opened one eye and glared at me the whole time I was watching it." Louis shuddered exaggeratedly. "I think it won't just leave on it's own. We'll have to make it go."

"Okay, so how do we do that? Lots of noise?" Zayn asked, nose scrunched in thought.

"Rocks!" Louis said.

"No!" Harry immediately answered. "Absolutely not. You'll hurt it!"

"I'm not going to actually hit it, just throw them near it. Just to scare it," Louis argued.

"No, I agree with Harry. We can't do that. What if you accidentally hit it? And it's not nice to scare an animal, Lou," Liam chimed in. Zayn nodded his support and Niall just shrugged.

Louis threw his hands up. "Okay, then what?"

"How about we lure it out?" Harry asked.

"With what?" Louis asked incredulously.

"I dunno. What do cats eat?"

No one had an answer for that.

For the rest of the day, they stayed in the yard, playing near their tree house but not in it. It was thoroughly unsatisfying.

That night, after the rest of the boys had gone home, Harry sat down to dinner with his older sister and his mum. He spent most of the meal playing with his food rather than actually eating it and finally his mum set her fork down and said, "Harry, dear, what's on your mind?"

Harry seized the opportunity and turned to her with widened eyes and a pout. "Mum, can we get a cat?"

His mother was taken aback. "A cat? Where is this coming from?"

"There's a cat in our tree house," he started and his sister started giggling until he glared at her. He turned pleading eyes on his mother. "It's so small and scrawny. It's underfed and it doesn't have a home and it isn't fair!" Unbidden, tears came but he blinked them away furiously. He wasn't a _baby_. He wouldn't cry over a stray cat! But still, the thought of the cat not having shelter when it rained or not having food made him want to cry.

"Oh honey," his mum said, coming over and wrapping him in a hug. "I know you feel sad for it but having a cat is a lot of responsibility. And a stray one, we don't even know if it's healthy."

"But we can take it to a vet, right? And I promise I'll take care of it! I'll feed it and play with it and walk it and everything!" he said earnestly.

His mum chuckled. "Harry, you don't walk cats."

"Oh. Well then it'll be even easier to take care of! Please mum? I won't ask for anything else ever, I swear!"

His mum studied him and Harry tried to exude responsibility and good intentions. Finally, she sighed and Harry knew he had won. "Alright. If the cat's still there tomorrow, we'll take it in. Okay?"

Harry nodded vigorously and shook his mum's offered hand to seal the deal. Across the table, his sister groaned and rolled her eyes.

The next morning, Harry hurried over to the tree house to see if the cat was still there. It was.

And so he adopted a cat. Of course, it became their group's mascot. They dubbed it Sir Lioncat and their tree house became The Lioncat's Den (Zayn drew it out on a banner using bubble letters and they hung it up over the doorway).

**Year 3**

The first half of their third year went smoothly. They started learning multiplication, so much of their time both in school and out was spent chanting various multiplication tables. Even during lunch, they often quizzed each other on the multiplication tables. Maths wasn't any of their strong suits which just made them all that much more worried about it.

Zayn had just finished running through the five times tables to loud cheering by Harry and Liam when Louis and Niall walked over, arguing fervently in hushed tones.

"I'm telling you, I saw them! Tons of them, lined up in neat little rows, locked away!" Louis was saying as they came close enough to be heard.

Niall shook his head. "Tommo -" (for they all had nicknames now, per Louis' decree when they had given their headquarters a name) "- I'm not denying that you saw them. But what can we _do_? As you said, they're in there. We're out here. Seems pretty hopeless, mate."

"Absolutely not hopeless, Nialler! We just have to free them. Right, lads?" Louis turned to them with righteous fire in his eyes.

"Right!" Zayn affirmed immediately. He had no idea what he was agreeing to but he'd found over the years that Louis' plans were usually quite fun, even if they did get them all into trouble once in awhile.

Liam shot him a look that tried for chiding and fell somewhere around fonding. He turned his look to Louis then and frowned. "What, exactly, do you want us to agree to, Tommo?"

"Liberating the ice cream cups!"

"What ice cream cups?" Harry asked.

"The ones the school's keeping locked away in the fridge! One of the lunch ladies had to go get more meat patties to cook and I saw them all lined up on the bottom of the freezer! They were practically calling for help. It's criminal, I tell you, absolutely criminal to keep them away from us like this!"

"I don't know, Tommo, maybe they're saving them for a special occasion. Like a holiday party," Liam, ever the voice of attempted reason, said.

Louis waved his hand carelessly. "That's got nothing to do with it. My point is that we have to free them! It's the only right thing to do."

"I think it's got everything to do with it. We'll get the ice cream eventually if they're meant for us. And if they're not meant for us, we'll get in trouble for taking them!"

"Come on, Payno. Where's your sense of fun?"

Liam looked around and saw that the others looked interested in Louis' idea - Harry with his eyes sparkling in anticipation, Niall looking like he could already taste the ice cream, and Zayn bouncing in his seat in excitement.

"Come on, Liam. It'll be fun and I'm sure it'll be fine!" Zayn said beseechingly.

Liam gave in. He couldn't ever say no to his friends, and especially not to Zayn. "Alright, alright," he conceded and the others cheered. "But let's try not to get caught, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, totally," Louis said and Liam already had a sense of doom about this latest scheme. He sighed.

They didn't know how long the ice cream was going to be in the fridge so they decided they had to act fast. And in any event, they were going on a school break for the holidays after that week and the ice cream definitely would be gone by the time school resumed.

For the rest of that school day and the next day, they huddled around during lunch and breaks and plotted. They put their plan in action two afternoons later, having decided that it was easier to sneak into the cafeteria after the cooks had finished with everything in the kitchen and left for the day. So when class ended that day and everyone was filing outside to wait for their parents, the five of them waited until the teachers' attentions were elsewhere and then sneaked off down the hall towards the cafeteria. There were a couple of close calls where they had to duck into already-empty classrooms or the bathroom whenever an adult walked by but they did eventually make it, hearts pounding from a combination of excitement and fear.

They nearly had to turn back when they had gotten to the doors of the cafeteria and found them already locked and the room darkened inside. But then Louis led them around the corner and they found a smaller side entrance which the staff used. It was propped open and when they peeked in, they saw that there was a man washing dishes in a large sink, humming along with a radio that was on a shelf near him, back to the door.

Louis widened his eyes at the boys and held a finger up to his lips and when the others nodded their understanding, he carefully pushed the door open a bit more. When no reaction came from the man inside, he nudged it further back until he could squeeze in. And then he disappeared inside.

One by one, the others followed - squeezing inside the doorway and then flattening themselves against the wall and staying hidden behind large metal shelves carrying sacks of flour and loaves of bread.

Liam was the last one in and he crept in with a quick prayer that they wouldn't get caught. But their luck seemed to hold.

The large industrial fridge/freezer combo was easy to spot in the kitchen and they quietly made their way to it, keeping an ear out for any sounds indicating the possible presence of other people in the kitchen. With one last glance over at the dishwasher, who hadn't seemed to notice anything amiss, Niall and Harry together pulled the door open, revealing rows and rows of little vanilla ice cream cups taking up half of the shelves in the freezer, just as Louis had described. Louis, Zayn, and Liam hurriedly grabbed cups for all five of them and then Niall and Harry eased the door closed. Then they started the trek back to the exit.

At one point, the dishwasher shut off the sink and dried his hands on a towel and then turned. They ducked down behind some crates and held their breaths.

Liam thought that surely at any moment, the man would spot them and shout at them and probably call the principal and then they'd get into trouble with the school and their parents.

But luckily, the guy didn't look around and spot them. He instead crossed to the other side of the kitchen and disappeared around a corner. Moments later, they heard the clanking of pans.

"We have to go! Now, before he gets back!" Zayn hissed.

Louis gave a sharp nod and then waved them on towards the door. He took up the last position and kept a lookout for the man while they scurried to the door, pulled it open, checked the hallway for people and then slipped out, one by one.

Once there, they broke out into hushed giggles. 

"Oh my god, I can't believe we pulled it off!" Liam said.

Niall shook his head in shared amazement.

"It's not over yet, boys," Louis said. At their collective questioning looks, he elaborated, "Now, we enjoy the spoils of battle! But not here. We've gotta leave the scene of the crime."

Zayn nodded his agreement. "The tree near the playground?" It was in the back of the school and usually where the younger kids waited for their parents but they had finished up with classes earlier and should have all gone home already.

"Brilliant. I like your thinking, Zaynie! Let's go."

So they went, feeling flushed with victory and triumph.

They didn't have anything to use to scoop out the ice cream but it tasted just as good on their fingers or straight from the cup. 

"Well, Payno? What do you say? Wasn't that the best thing ever?" Louis crowed, throwing an arm around Liam's shoulders after they had tossed out the empty cups in a nearby bin.

Liam nodded vigorously, feeling giddy from adrenalin and sugar. "It was awesome!" The others cheered and piled themselves on top of Louis and Liam in a group hug.

Then one of the teachers came looking for them, exclaiming that their parents had been waiting for them for ages and everyone was right worried about where they had gone off to. Even when they had all separated to go home with their own parents, they still felt like their mission had bonded them together more tightly than ever. Together, they could do anything.

(It turned out that the next day at lunch, it being the last school day before their winter break, the school administration had planned a surprise ice cream dessert for all the students after all.)

**Year 4**

Year 4 tested them in ways they had never been tested before. It provided them with a year-long challenge that nearly defeated them at multiple points. It tested their individual smarts and determination and it tested the strength of their friendship.

Year 4 was the Year of Long Division.

"I don't get it!" Louis cried out during one homework session. "Who _does_ long division?! Who even _needs_ long division?! We have _calculators_!"

"Maths is an important life skill," Liam said, sounding like he was dutifully reciting something an adult had said. "And we might not always have a calculator with us."

"So what? We're going to have a _maths_ emergency?!"

"We have to learn it," Liam said determinedly. He bent his head back down to his worksheet, staring grimly at the numbers that were just mocking him. It sounded so easy when their teacher explained it but in reality, it was so hard. And yet, he thought he could almost grasp it. It was incredibly frustrating. He wasn't the smartest student in the class but usually if he tried hard enough, he could understand what they were learning. This though, this was proving to be the hardest thing he'd ever tried to learn so far.

Louis threw up his hands and sighed gustily. He knew Liam was right, of course. If nothing else, they had to learn it for class. But it didn't mean he had to like it. Pouting, he went back to contemplating the numbers in front of him.

Harry and Niall, who had taken the route of quietly buckling down to the work and ignoring Louis' dramatic explosions, didn't look up at all during the whole exchange.

Zayn had watched them with narrowed eyes, as if he was worried. He did that every time they had a row like this (which they did about once a week) as if he thought that one day Louis would be so frustrated with maths that he'd go too far and take it out on Liam. So far, that hadn't happened but Zayn liked to keep an eye out. Liam was his best friend after all, he had to watch out for him. Satisfied that this week's blow-up was over, he leaned over and nudged Liam softly. When the other boy looked up with tired brown eyes, Zayn pulled his funniest face - eyes focused in on his nose, mouth stretched open and tongue protruding in a curl. His hands pulled his ears up and out to complete the look.

Liam giggled and snorted, setting his pencil down and cupping both hands over his mouth to muffle his laugh. His eyes crinkled up the way they always did when he was genuinely tickled by something Zayn or one of the others did. Zayn always felt a sense of accomplishment when he could elicit a reaction like that.

He grinned, satisfied that he still had the ability to cheer Liam up even in the face of maths.

Regardless of all their studying, the five of them nearly didn't pass maths in the end. Luckily, in the spring, Harry had an epiphany and suddenly grasped how to do it. Several weeks of him slowly explaining it to them, in his drawling unhurried way which had Louis bouncing in frustration and nearly tearing his hair out, and Niall was the second one to get it. Harry shouted in triumph that his teaching method worked and the rest of them were spurred into action trying desperately to figure it out as well or risk being separated into different aptitude sets later.

Finally, about a month before their end-of-year exams, the light turned on for Liam and Zayn, nearly at the same time. Zayn wanted to celebrate immediately but Liam was more cautious and insisted that they do a couple more practice questions to make sure they really had it down. So they did and when those turned out to be right, Zayn jumped at Liam and threw his arms around him, shouting in joy. Liam hugged him back and then Harry and Niall joined in the celebration. They were so loud that Niall's mum came running in to see what was wrong.

"Nothing's wrong, mum!" Niall cried out from within the group hug. "We're just gonna pass maths!"

"Well, we're still waiting on Tommo to get his arse in gear and learn it but we're almost there," Zayn amended.

"No, I can't," Louis groaned from where he had flopped down on the floor when the celebration started. He threw his arm over his eyes and waved the other one at them. "You boys should just go on without me. Just remember me as the fallen leader of the group. Maybe put up a statue in my honor with 'Defeated by Long Division' as the inscription."

Liam broke up the group hug to go over and pull Louis up. It was impossible, though, as Louis was wiggling against him, refusing to be budged. Liam laughed and pulled harder. "Come _on_ , Tommo. Since when are you a quitter? You've got a month. That's plenty of time!"

The other three converged on them - Harry grabbing onto the same arm Liam had in his grasp, Zayn and Niall taking up Louis' other arm. Together, the four of them pulled him up into a sitting position and set about explaining maths. It was a cacophony of noise with the boys all talking over each other and Louis laughing in delight.

Niall's mum just shook her head with a smile and left them to it.

The night before the test, about thirty minutes into their study session, Louis crowed that he had figured it out. And then he demonstrated his grasp of long division so flawlessly that they were all left wondering if he had really only just learned it or if he had known all along....whatever the real story was, Louis never said. Nonetheless, they conquered maths and their fourth year together.

**Year 5**

Their fifth year was the Year They Got Lost in A Museum and Liam Saved Them.

It happened like this:

They were taking a class trip to the British Museum. Their parents had offered to attend as chaperons but the boys collectively decided that would be too restrictive on their fun. And so they were admonished to stay with each other and with the class and not to get lost in the museum or accidentally destroy any ancient artifacts.

When they got to the museum, they were instructed by their teacher, Ms. Watson, and the museum tour guides to use the buddy system and to stay with the class. They then said that if they were to get separated, they were to go to the nearest security guard for assistance.

Everyone nodded solemnly, though they were all visibly itching to get in and start exploring rather than listen to boring adult speeches.

As soon as they were given the signal to break up into pairs, there was a mad scramble among the kids to grab their friends.

Zayn and Liam, who were already standing next to each other, automatically reached out and clasped hands.

Louis turned to them with a grin and then looked down at their joined hands and pouted. "Seriously?"

They shrugged. "Sorry, Tommo," they chimed, not very sorry at all. After the Incident at The Zoo in their second year, they were always class trip buddies (they had been rotating the pairings each trip to be fair to everyone and that time, Zayn and Louis had paired up, Liam was with Harry, and Niall was with another student in their class. When everyone else was distracted, Zayn and Louis had dared each other to climb up the monkey cages. They had actually made it quite high before one of the monkeys leaped from a tree branch onto its side of the cage wall, rattling it and startling them so that they let off simultaneous shrieks. Their teacher had come running up and called for them to come down immediately but they were both so frozen with fear because of the monkey leering at them that they couldn't move. Two of the zookeepers had to come get them down. The school, their parents, and the other boys all forbade the two of them from ever being paired up again when it could lead to life threatening danger. And so at their next class trip, Zayn claimed Liam as his buddy. And then on the one after that, Liam reciprocated and claimed Zayn as his buddy. And the cycle continued until it had become tradition that the two of them always picked each other and the other three switched things up between them.)

Louis sighed. He turned to Harry and Niall who had also already paired up. "Fine, fine. Guess it's my turn to pair up with a stranger," he said.

As if on cue, Ms. Watson walked up to them with a little ginger-headed boy in two. "Boys, this is Billy." She took a quick assessing look at all of them and directed a look at Louis. "Billy," she said, nudging him forward. "This is Louis. He's a very nice boy. I think the two of you will enjoy seeing the museum together."

Billy looked dubious but took hold of Louis' hand obediently.

"You boys will watch out for Billy, won't you?" The question was meant for all of them, but the look she shot to Liam and Zayn seemed to plead with them in particular to make sure that Louis didn't inadvertently do anything to damage or traumatize Billy.

"We'll take care of him, Ms. Watson. Don't worry," Liam reassured her. 

She grinned at him and ruffled his curls. "Thank you, Liam. I knew I could count on you boys."

With everyone paired up, they made their way into the museum after the tour guides. They passed through room after room of art - some of them filled with paintings of people long dead and others filled with statues of people in togas but missing limbs. They heard about Ancient Greece and the Renaissance.

And then, they were listening to the guides talk about the artwork in one of the Asian rooms when Zayn caught sight of something in one of the small connecting rooms - it was dimmer than the main room they were currently standing in so he tugged on Liam's hand and wandered over to get a closer look. Liam let himself be pulled along but looked back and caught Harry's eye, gesturing for him and Niall to follow. Harry in turn tapped Louis on the shoulder and he and Billy came along as well.

The six of them ended up entering the room entirely and found themselves surrounded by fantastical masks. The atmosphere felt more hushed than when they were in the outer room and each mask was being showcased with its own spotlight. Most of them were hanging on the wall but a few were inside glass cases set on top of pedestals. 

"'Japanese theatre masks'," Liam read off of one of the wall plaques.

"They're so cool!" Zayn breathed. "Look, Liam, look at the colors on this one!"

"Wow! Oh, look at that one! The all-white one with the black eyes. That's kinda freaky."

Zayn shuddered exaggeratedly. "Yeah, let's move on to the next one. I want to make some of these later. Wouldn't it be great to have some? We could be like superheroes or something!"

"Oh yeah, that would be awesome!"

"Um, guys?" Billy broke in. "Shouldn't we get back to the class?"

"Yeah, yeah, we will. In a minute," Louis answered. He went back to studying the mask in front of him. Zayn was right, it _would_ be great to have a couple of masks like these. They could even use them to pull pranks on all of their sisters (and Niall's brother).

"We haven't been here that long. They're probably still in the other room," Harry said.

Billy looked anxiously back towards the doorway but he could still see students wandering in the other room so he shrugged and let himself enjoy the colorful masks in this room.

"Oh, guys, there's another room through here. It's got _swords_!" Zayn said excitedly.

"What? Where?" Louis asked, towing his partner unceremoniously along as he hurried to where Zayn and Liam were hovering around another doorway - opposite from the one leading back the main room that their class was in.

Harry and Niall joined them shortly after and they all just stood for a moment in awed silence, gaping at the collection of swords on display in glass cases throughout the room. Many of the blades were curved and dulled from age, but some still reflected the light from the ceiling and shone like they were brand new. As one, the boys entered and crowded around the first case. Harry read out the inscription on the placard at the base.

"Imagine if we had swords! We could be samurai!" Zayn breathed.

"Knights!" Niall chimed in.

"Pirates!" Louis said.

When they got through all the swords in the room and made their way back to the main Asian exhibit, everyone else had left.

"Where'd everyone go?" Harry asked, bewildered.

"Oh, no," Billy moaned. "We're going to be in so much trouble!"

"Not to worry, partner! We'll find them soon enough. It's not like this museum is _that_ big," Louis said. The others looked at him sceptically. "Well, okay, maybe it is. But it's not like they could have gone far, right? We were only in that room for a little bit of time and they need to stop and talk about the art. So they're probably just in the next gallery."

That sounded reasonable enough. So they checked all the adjoining galleries. No luck.

They stopped in the hallway outside one of the exhibits to strategize again.

"Okay," Louis admitted. "Maybe they went further than I thought."

"Maybe we should just get a security guard. Or go to the information desk. They can call Ms. Watson and she can come get us," Niall suggested.

"No!" Louis said, aghast. "We'll get in so much trouble! We have to get back before they notice we're gone."

Thinking of Ms. Watson potentially being disappointed in them, Zayn nodded in agreement. He didn't want her to think they had let her down by getting lost in the museum. She was by far the coolest teacher they had ever had.

"But how are we gonna find them? They might not even be on this floor anymore. And if we just wander around, we could be completely missing them and never know it," Harry said.

"Wait!" Liam said, pulling out a map of the museum from his back pocket. At the others' surprised looks, he said sheepishly, "I grabbed one off the rack near the entrance."

"We've been tracking our progress on the tour," Zayn said in support.

And indeed, throughout the floor plan was a dotted line in red ink. Someone (Zayn probably) had doodled a pirate's ship at the entrance of the museum and there were x's marked at certain exhibits. Some of those had already been connected with the dotted line but there were a few that were standing alone. There was a legend listing all the exhibits and next to the ones they had stopped in, Liam and Zayn had alternated jotting down notes like 'Wicked!' and 'Naked statues hehe.'

"The x's mark the galleries the tour guides said we would stop at, since we weren't going to be able to see all of them," Liam explained.

"You were actually listening to them?" Billy asked, wide-eyed.

"Of course he was!" Louis said imperiously, giving Billy's hand a warning tug and shooting a narrow-eyed look at the boy. "Payno here likes to know what's going on. He's the smart one of us, always planning ahead in case of emergencies."

"He knows us too well," Harry said.

"In case there's ever a zombie apocalypse, Payno would be the one to lead the resistance and save humanity!" Niall said.

Liam laughed. "What? No way."

"Okay, fine. You can just save us. We'll hide out somewhere and someone else can save humanity."

"Those swords would be very useful in case of a zombie apocalypse. You should make a note of that, Liam," Zayn mused. 

"Oh, yeah. And all these ancient artifacts, there's probably some that are magical in some way. Maybe an amulet or something that would protect against zombies. This would be a great hiding place," Liam said.

"Oh my god, we're never going to get back to the class, are we?" Billy asked, looking at them with horrified fascination at how they were so quickly derailed from the original dilemma.

"What? Oh, sorry. Okay, so, we're here now," Liam said, and rotated the map so that it matched the layout of the rest of the museum from their current vantage point. "The next stop should have been the Egyptian rooms here." He pointed at a place on the floorplan that was on the same level as they one they were currently on but further down the hallway.

"What are we waiting for, then? Let's go!" Louis said and took off. 

The rest of them hurried after him, calling for him to wait or else they'd get separated.

The class wasn't in the Egyptian room so they consulted Liam's map again and found them at the next stop, the Roman Empire room. The tour guides were just wrapping up their spiel and getting ready to let the class explore the various artwork around the room so the six of them slid in unobtrusively at the back of the group. Once they had dispersed to look at the art on their own, Ms. Watson made a beeline towards them.

"Uh-oh," Niall muttered.

"There you boys are! I was starting to get worried," she said.

"Sorry, Ms. Watson. We got a little distracted," Liam said.

"I figured. I was going to give you boys until lunch to find us and then I was going to have security hunt you down."

"You're not going to tell our parents, are you?" Harry asked nervously.

"I don't see that there's anything to tell, is there?" she said with a wink. "Mind you stay with the group from now on, though. Or I _will_ say something to them."

The boys breathed a collective sigh of relief. "Thanks, Ms. Watson," they chorused.

She smiled and wandered off to another group of kids.

"Best teacher ever!" Harry said. The others all nodded in unanimous agreement.

"And," Zayn said, holding Liam's hand up, "best rescuer ever!"

The other four cheered and thumped Liam on the back. Liam smiled and flushed at their accolades.

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful, if Harry tripping and nearly knocking over a priceless bronze statue was uneventful. Luckily, Niall had good reflexes and averted another crisis. Ms. Watson stuck pretty close to their group after that, though she seemed more amused than angry.

**Year 6**

Year 6 was their last year in primary school so they spent it in a mix of anticipation of secondary school and nostalgia for the past couple of years.

"Boys," Louis announced about a month into the year. As usual, his announcements came dramatically at the beginning of lunch.

As one, they raised an eyebrow at him inquiringly.

"I have figured out what our responsibility and duty is to this honorable establishment of learning." He paused dramatically and then, just as they had rolled their eyes at each other and started looking away from him back to their food, he said, "We have to take on protegés!"

"What?" Zayn asked, looking taken aback.

"Protegés? For what? We don't have anything to pass on to anyone," Harry asked.

"Harold, as much as it pains me to say it, you are wrong. We have everything to pass on to a younger generation! We have the bonds of friendship, the secret of the ice cream cache, the inspirational story of overcoming Long Division! Those are all very valuable things to pass on as legacies!"

"But Tommo, how are we even going to find a group of kids who want to follow in our footsteps?" Niall asked, looking as if he doubted such a group of kids existed.

"It's already done," Louis declared.

"What? How?" Liam demanded. He had sudden nightmarish visions of Louis in a basement lab cackling like a mad scientist as he cloned them from bits of stolen hair.

"I've been surveying the first years since school started and I've pinpointed the perfect matches. I'll introduce everyone after school."

They all were dubious of this latest scheme of Louis' but at the same time, worried that if they didn't go along with his plans for now, he'd do something rash like kidnap a bunch of kids to take them to the tree house and forcibly introduce all of them to each other. That afternoon, when classes let out, they met near the tree at the back of the school.

"Louis..." Liam started. "How did you get their parents to let them stay long enough to wait for us to get out of class?"

"Oh, I told their parents the school had a Big Brother, Big Sisters program where older students were paired with younger ones to help them get settled in school."

Liam buried his face in his hands and Zayn burst out laughing. Harry shook his head but had a fond smile on his face. Niall bit down on a chuckle and managed to get out, "And they bought it?"

Louis looked offended. "Of course! Why wouldn't they? I'm a perfectly responsible-looking eleven-year-old boy! And that _is_ what we're doing, so it wasn't a lie."

"Oh, really?" Liam asked dryly. "I thought we were creating mini-me's."

"Well, yeah, that too. It's the same thing, really."

"Er, not really..." Harry said but trailed off as they caught sight of the little kids milling about under the tree. There were five of them, looking impossibly small. One boy was Asian and another one was ginger-headed with freckles across his cheeks. There was one with light brown hair and glasses framing wide brown eyes, another one with tousled, windblown straight brown hair and blue eyes, and one who was shorter than the others, with brown hair and green eyes.

"Children!" Louis shouted and traipsed over to them. The others followed in morbid fascination. Louis had gone straight to the one with the wild hair and the blue eyes and clasped both shoulders. "This is my mini-me." He nudged the Asian boy over to Zayn, who raised an eyebrow. "Zaynie, this one's Pakistani so he's yours." He pushed the ginger-headed one at Niall. "Nialler, this one's Irish so he's yours." Niall rolled his eyes but gave a smile to the kid in front of him.

"Gee, Tommo, did you happen to find a boy from Wolverhampton for me?" Liam asked.

"No, sadly not. But here, this one's nerdy so I thought he'd be perfect for you!" Louis said with a bright grin, nudging the little boy with glasses over to him.

Liam shared a look with the boy. "I'm not really smart," he said.

"Neither am I," the boy responded.

"Okay, then, glad we're on the same page," Liam said with a bemused smile.

"Lastly, Harold, this one's yours. Look, same green eyes and everything!"

"Uh, thanks, Louis. I guess." Harry looked lost as the kid came to stand at his side.

For a minute, they were at an impasse with the five of them staring at the little kids, sharing questioning looks with each other, and staring at Louis who was so gleeful he was practically rubbing his hands together and jumping in place. 

"Louis, this is crazy! This is by far the worst idea you've ever had!" Liam finally said.

"I beg to differ, Liam my man. When you leave this school, don't you want to leave it knowing that it's in good hands?"

"Of course it'll be in good hands! The school administration's hands!"

"Those aren't good hands! They tried to hide ice cream from us!"

At that, the little kids suddenly all spoke up at once.

"There's ice cream?"

"Where's the ice cream?"

"Why would they hide it from us?"

"No, no, there's no ice cream _now_. It was a few years ago that we caught them at it. They do it around the winter hols," Louis explained.

"Louis, they _gave_ us the ice cream the next day. It's not like they were hoarding it forever," Liam argued.

"Well, anyway. It's too late. The plan's already in motion. I told the parents we were doing it and I gave them our names so they'll be expecting us to be mentoring these precious little tykes."

The others groaned.

And so they also spent their sixth and final year in primary school acting as big brothers to a group of five little boys. Liam was determined to do right by them and their parents so in addition to inviting them over to play at their tree house (Harry's idea) and giving them nicknames (Niall's idea), they also helped them with their homework and showed them around the school. Liam was adamant that they not teach the kids how to sneak into the cafeteria to steal the ice cream before they were given out at the annual pre-holiday luncheon so they didn't (Louis did draw up a plan for such a scheme, for purely academic purposes, and snuck it into his mini-me's backpack for him to find later).

Before they knew it, the year was ending and the only thing left was a leaver's assembly.

"Boys!" Louis cried, throwing his arms around them and pulling them all into a group hug. "Can you believe it's over?!!! All these years, all the memories, all in the past! How can anything ever live up to what we've had together?"

"Christ, Louis, you'd think we were actually separating for secondary school the way you're carrying on," Liam said but that only prompted him to fake-sob into his shoulder and draw even more attention to their group.

So they just patted his back and weathered his dramatics throughout the ceremony, wincing when he started wailing in the middle of the principal's speech.

Once it was over and all the pictures with parents and teachers had been taken, he smiled brightly at them and said, "Well, that's that, then! See you boys tomorrow at Harry's for the barbecue?"

They all nodded and said their farewells and split up to return home with their families to celebrate the successful completions of their primary education.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! <3
> 
> ~~I think this is supposed to be anonymous until the unveiling so I'll come back later to add my usual tumblr link.~~
> 
> It's been unveiled so feel free to come chat with me on [tumblr](http://likealeafonthewind.tumblr.com) or [lj](http://todriftornot.livejournal.com)! If you liked this fic, please consider [reblogging](http://likealeafonthewind.tumblr.com/post/134067275688/live-love-laugh-play-anecdotalist-one). And thanks again for reading!


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